Vote for the Eurocontrol Twitter lady, she deserves it

Berlin, April 15, 2010: I’m at the social media conference re:publica 2010 where we are organising a workshop with friends from the Blogging Portal. Little by little, I realize something’s wrong with the airlines. It seems an Icelandic volcano is causing a giant ash cloud, paralysing most European airports. We’re told it could last a few days… I start worrying about not being able to get back home. In this mess, we all try and find as much information as we can. I check Twitter on my BlackBerry. I discover the hashtag #ashtag, and through that, the Eurocontrol Twitter account. From then on, it became my primary source of information as it was the most up-to-date and the most reliable.

Back then, I was absolutely amazed by the way Eurocontrol handled the situation through Twitter. How Aurélie used Twitter during this crisis should be an example for all institutions trying to get into the social media world. She was informative, responsive, human, funny, genuine… she got it, I thought.